New Word

This Earth Day, I've decided to honor those who have done so much to impose draconian measures meant to drive us back to the Stone Age make us aware of our fragile planet, with a new word that sets them far apart from and well above the masses. That new word is "Graint." It's a combination of "Green Saint".

So, we have Graint Al Gore, Graint Ed Begley, Jr., Graint Rachel Carson, and hundreds more! And unlike Saints, whose spiritual righteousness surpasses their own needs making a surplus available to the rest of us, Graints are superbly adept at making daily life even more difficult for the poorest of the poor; but from their ivory palaces they know just what's best for us commoners.

Graint has the added feature of an additional interpretation:
"Great (ain't)."

Can one post in four months even be considered 'sporadic'?

I haven't become apolitical, I just haven't been "stimulust".

I've had quite a lot and very little on my plate of late. Since moving to Utah, my wife took a position with the University of Phoenix, and so I am starting my Master's degree with them. I get a substantial tuition discount for her status as an employee. For my part, however, I'm still among the ranks of the jobless civilians. I had a seasonal position at a local camera shop, that ended with Christmas day and I interviewed to be a meter reader - mostly as a way to get my foot into the door.

Anyhoo, the program I started is Master of Information Systems - seems like I need to add something more technological to my history/intelligence/analysis base. Maybe I should take some programming classes at the community college, too.

I also convinced my Mom and Dad to let me archive all their slides and stuff. I have the first box of 1,000 in front of me, they include two of my Dad's Scout Jamborees in the late 50s, my Mom's LDS mission in Rapid City in '65, and a tour she took of Europe with the BYU folk dancers in '64. This has been a really fun project. It's like time travel. For instance, one of the BSA Jamborees was in Colorado Springs - it's interesting to see the changes that have taken place on that landscape in the last ~50 years. It's a bit unnerving to see them as 20-year-olds or even teenagers. I'm also seeing a side of my grandparents I've never seen. I'm used to them being held up as almost superhuman examples of everything right and good, but now I'm seeing images of them being normal people. It's especially poignant since I never met my Grandpa, and only know him through reminiscences and formal portraits.

I've done the first 300 or so of the first K-worth of slides. Most of them are pretty straight-forward scans, but a few need major restorations done. My Epson scanner does a pretty good job of color restoration and dust removal (the integrated slide/negative scanner and restorative software are two of the reasons I bought this model six years go), but some still need a bit of touching up with Photoshop. For the most part, the Kodak has kept its colorfastness over the years, but there are commercial images that are really faded. (It seems like 40 years ago, you would go to the souvenir shop and buy a box of slides of all the prominent landmarks - a pretty good idea, as they would have been shot by professionals with better equipment than your average college tourist. I wonder if you now can buy a JPEG CD-ROM of all the great spots - and some obscure ones - in Venice? Now there's an idea!)

So I have plenty to keep me busy, between working for Mom and Dad for free, going back to school and trading places with my fabulous wife.

Population Explosion

B decided that for his birthday he wanted mice. We tried our darndest to convince him that rats, and even hamsters, were better and smarter than mice, but he'd made up his mind. So on Valentine's Day we took him to the pet store and he got to pick out two. We found a clerk to open the female tank and she pulled out all the hiding places so he could see all 35+ of them scatter. That's when I noticed that one of those things was not like the others.

"That's a male," I said in my best deadpan voice. "Great," was the reply and she unceremoniously nabbed the little philanderer by the tail and yanked him out of his Valentine's love nest.

And so, a week later, "Lucy" is exhibiting nesting behavior, and she's much bigger than "Jane," who thankfully appears to still be a mouse virgin. B's going to be a daddy. PetCo said they'd take the babies off our hands (we have that in writing), but I'll bet they'll have their hands full with literally hundreds of mouslings in a couple of weeks.

Lucy is in the back

UPDATE: Turns out she wasn't pregnant, just fatter. The other one died mysteriously. Fortunately, they're cheap, 4 mice for the price of one hamster.

Finally!

Today is the Day! I'm as happy as Rabbit when Winnie the Pooh was heave-hoed from his front door. I did not vote party line (my conscience won't let me) for two reasons: I'm not a party member and I believe the best balance is attained with a mixed bag - Checks and Balances and that kind of thing.

Bottom line, the unprecedented farce of a campaign is over and the rancor can go back underground (just below the surface where it festers best) until the lawyers are mobilized to challenge the voice of the peons people.

Duh of the Day Award

CNN: Study links sexual content on TV to teen pregnancy.

Researchers at the nonprofit [RAND] organization found that adolescents with a high level of exposure to television shows with sexual content are twice as likely to get pregnant or impregnate someone as those who saw fewer programs of this kind over a period of three years.

And here I was thinking media programming was entirely benign and not influential at all on peoples' - especially teenagers' - behavior.
At least that's what they keep telling us -- "There's no evidence that: 'TV influences kids' behavior'; 'violent video games influence kids' behavior'; 'sexy lyrics and music videos influence kids' behavior'" Excepting of course flashy ads peddling wares/telling kids what to wear, what to eat, what to drink, what to think (the more you know) how to smell, whom to hang out with (not people who say whom) what's cool...those are influential, but not the virtuous programs with all the pretty stars and preachy messages and political baggage and stuff.

And then there's this gold nugget:

The study also found that adolescents living in a two-parent household had a lower probability of pregnancy [read: adolescent sexual activity].

Really? Two parents? A mom and a dad? Imagine my feigned surprise. Actually, the number 2 isn't endowed with a descriptor (mom/dad, mom/mom, dad/dad, mom/first cousin, dad/gazelle) they all seem to be on pretty equal footing in the article.